Schwab — Fintech and DeFi Research Archive

Posts tagged Schwab

Metaverse 101 with Lex Sokolin and Cris Sheridan, Sr. Editor of Financial Sense

In this conversation, Cris Sheridan, who is the Senior Editor of Financial Sense and Host of FS Insider, leads the conversation around the basics to understand the exciting new digital universe, more commonly known as The Metaverse.

More specifically, we discuss all things VR & AR including social media’s proliferation into the sector, Millenial vs GenZ behavioural approaches to the metaverse, the creator economy, NFTs, Axie Infinity, Mr Beast, Computational Blockchains, Decentralized Autonomous Organizations (DAOs), ConsenSys, MetaMask, and Ethereum vs Institutional Finance (Schwab).

metaverse, social & community, gaming & sports, generational change, NFTs and digital objects, DAOsLex SokolinSeptember 3, 2021Axie Infinity, Mr Beast, ConsenSys, MetaMask, Ethereum, Schwab, Millennials, Gen Z

Altruist CEO Jason Wenk on WealthTech, financial planning, advice, and generally improving financial health

In this conversation, we chat with Jason Wenk, who is the Founder & CEO at Altruist. Apart from this Jason is a writer, self-proclaimed math geek, and investment systems developer. He began his career at Morgan Stanley in NYC at age 20, working on investment research and asset management systems development. After this Jason founded FormulaFolios: quantitative, computer-driven investment models based on academic research to help remove emotion from investing. FormulaFolios would later develop into a standalone asset manager and go on to rank as a fastest-growing private company by Inc. magazine 4 years in a row, reaching as high as #10 in 2017.

More specifically, we discuss all things wealth tech, as well as, serving people with financial planning, financial advice, and generally improving their financial health.

roboadvisor, digital investing, exchanges / cap mkts, marketing, entrepreneurshipLex SokolinAugust 20, 2021Altruist, FormulaFolios, Morgan Stanley, Betterment, Wealthfront, Fidelity, AdvisorEngine, Apex Clearing, TD Ameritrade, Schwab

The fundamentals of Circle's $4.5B SPAC, Robinhood's IPO, and the $30B of fintech venture capital

Last quarter, fintech funding rose to $30 billion, the highest on record. $14 billion of SPAC capital is waiting to take these companies public. Robinhood and Circle are about to float on the public markets, via SPAC and IPO. In this analysis, we explore the fundamentals of both companies, as well as the unifying thesis that explains their growth.

venture capital, digital investing, crypto, paytech, stablecoins, IPO / SPACLex SokolinJuly 12, 2021Robinhood, Circle, Centre, USDC, USDT, Coinbase, Schwab, Moonpay, SeedInvest, Jump Trading, Citadel, Uniswap, Poloniex

How roboadvisors, B2C fintechs, and high tech giants are causing deep shifts in wealth management

We are syndicating a deep conversation across roboadvice, high tech and payments, and fintech bundling that we had with Craig Iskowitz of Ezra Group Consulting.

Check out Ezra Group Consulting here to learn more about digital wealth and Craig’s consulting practice. He is one of the sharpest software consultants in the RIA space, and his firm works with wealth management firms and fintech vendors to provide technology strategy and market research.

We had a lot of fun in this conversation and cover TD & Schwab, Wealthsimple, M1 Finance, Ant & Tencent, and Robinhood, among others. The full transcript is provided along with the recording — worth a read for the illustrations alone.

decentralized finance, digital investing, asset management, roboadvisorLex SokolinNovember 20, 2020Explainer, TD Ameritrade, Schwab, Wealthsimple, M1 Finance, Ant Financial, Tencent, Robinhood, MetaMask, NestEgg Wealth, Autonomous Research, AdvisorEngine

How Monzo, Revolut, and Starling get to break-even, and comparison with WeChat and Facebook

This week, we look at:

The financial model behind Monzo, and comparisons to Revolut and Starling
How the Eastern super apps inspired the marketplace model, and why that success is hard for neobanks to replicate
Paths from losing $100 million per year to break-even and enabling digital assets and other financial products
Facebook Financial forming to take over payments and commerce

digital lending, neobank, digital securities / STOLex SokolinAugust 17, 2020Monzo, Revolut, Starling, Square, SoFi, Curve, Robinhood, Schwab

Everyone should trade the billions in DeFi Structured Products! Or do digital asset derivatives need custodians and regulators?

This week, I grapple with the concepts of financial centralization and decentralization, anchoring around custody, staking, and DeFi examples. On the centralized side, we look at BitGo's acquisition of Lumina, Coinbase Custody and its similarity to Schwab and Betterment Institutional. On the decentralized side, we examine the recent $500 million increase in value within the Compound protocol, as well as the recursive loops that could pose a broader financial risk to the ecosystem.

crypto, decentralized finance, DAOs, digital securities / STOLex SokolinJune 22, 2020BitGo, Coinbase, Lumina, Addepar, Fidelity, Betterment, Schwab, Ethereum, Bitcoin, ConsenSys, Institutional Shareholder Services, Compound, Balancer, PieDAO

Brex Raises Again, Shopify Launches Bank Accounts and M&A Ideas for Goldman

Welcome back to the Fintech Blueprint / Rebank podcast series hosted by Will Beeson and Lex Sokolin. In this episode, we talk through a few recent events that are indicative of the Fintech world right now. Brex raised an additional $150 million at a slightly improved valuation vs. its last round just as Monzo is reportedly looking at a 40% down round. Why? Shopify launched bank accounts for its merchants and announced the Shop app, basically an Amazon competitor plus Klarna, just as it worked with Facebook to support the launch of Facebook Shops and joined the Libra Association. Lots going on. Lastly, we discuss why Goldman’s M&A activity over the past couple years leads to the natural conclusion that they should buy Schwab.

digital investing, digital lending, neobank, roboadvisor, eCommerceLex SokolinMay 29, 2020Brex, Goldman Sachs, Schwab, Silicon Valley Bank, Monzo, OnDeck, Shopify, Amazon, Libra / Diem, Facebook, FolioFn, Marcus

Goldman is trying to build a Fintech powerhouse, and this is how they should do it

This week, we put on the Goldman hat and go shopping for companies. We buy a little bit of Folio and sell some Motif. We look at Personal Capital and the $1 billion it wants for its $12 billion of assets. We examine the private markets with Addepar / iCapital and SharesPost / Forge, and then move over to the banking sector. Should we buy Wells Fargo, as rumored, or some digital wallet apps? Read on for how to acquire a best-in-class Fintech.

$700B Franklin Templeton buys wealth tech AdvisorEngine, while digital investing DeFi revolution only starting

This week, I pause to reflect on the sales of (1) AdvisorEngine to Franklin Templeton and (2) the technology of Motif Investing to Schwab. Is all enterprise wealth tech destined to be acquired by financial incumbents? Has the roboadvisor innovation vector run dry? Not at all, I think. If anything, we are just getting started. Decentralized finance innovators like Zapper, Balancer, TokenSets, and PieDAO are re-imagining what wealth management looks like on Ethereum infrastructure. Their speed of iteration and deployment is both faster and cheaper, and I am more excited for the future of digital investing than ever before.

Implications of Schwab's $26 billion acquisition of TD Ameritrade, and Tesla's black swan truck

Well this morning started out as a bit of a bummer! See -- Charles Schwab to buy TD Ameritrade in a $26 billion all-stock deal. The $55 billion market cap Schwab is gobbling up the $22 billion TD Ameritrade at a slight premium. Matt Levine of Bloomberg has a great, cynical take on the question: Schwab lowering its trading commissions to zero is actually what wiped out $4 billion off TD's marketcap a few months ago. For Schwab, the revenue loss from trading was 7% of total, while for TD it was over 20%. Once Schwab dropped prices, TD started trading at a discount and became an acquisition target. You can see the share price drops reflected below in the beginning of October.

big tech, asset management, roboadvisor, digital transformation, digital investingLex SokolinNovember 25, 2019TD Ameritrade, Schwab, Tesla, Robinhood, Fidelity, Napster, JP Morgan, Goldman Sachs, SoFi, SEC

Fintech Price War -- Goldman's $1.3B Marcus burn, Neobank £200MM loss, ETrade's $75MM trading fees

We are like the hungry at the all-you-can-eat buffet. In the beginning, there is not enough! Let's democratize access to food; to music; to transportation; to healthcare; to finance; to payments; to banking; to lending; to investing. The billions in institutional capital across universities, pensions, and sovereigns are delegated to smart portfolio managers. The day before yesterday, it was allocated by small cap stock pickers (hi Warren!). Yesterday, it was the alternative managers of hedge funds and private equity. Today, it is the trading machine and the venture capitalist. Tomorrow, it is the cryptographic artificial intelligence.

roboadvisor, neobank, digital transformation, mega banksLex SokolinOctober 7, 2019Goldman Sachs, Marcus, Atom, Monzo, Revolut, Starling, Tandem, Betterment, ARK Invest, Robinhood, JP Morgan, Schwab, eTrade, Interactive Brokers

Deutsche Bank to fire 18,000 people while Amazon upskills 100,000

Today's corporations and governments are in the business of defining the balance of these aspects of our participation in society and the economy. Beliefs about the immutability of different attributes about what makes a person (or an employee) and how economies are built (cutting the pie, vs. growing the pie) determine the policy decisions you make, top down. As the core example this week, let's take Deutsche Bank. Facing pricing pressure and headwinds in several of its businesses, Deutsche is responding with a plan to fire 18,000 employees by 2022 and an announced investment of €13 Billion in technology and innovation by 2022. They even spun up a hipster-colored neobank as a proof point. Wall Street ain't buying it.

philosophy, artificial intelligence, digital transformation, neobankLex SokolinJuly 15, 2019Deutsche Bank, Schwab, Amazon

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